He mounted me a HxC-SD-Floppy inside and it looks really great. He did a fantastic job and he said it was a lot of work, to make it look professional. I can imagine. So, here are some pictures of this Amiga. The two black buttons on the side of the Amiga are the buttons for NEXT DISK and PREVIOUS DISK and the floppydisk-eject-button is now SELECT / EJECT of the hfe-diskfiles.

It`s possible to use a File-Browser (called Emulator-Manager) which could be loaded after a RESET or after the POWER-ON, for inserting disk-files. The HxC can emulate DF0 and DF1. The two black buttons on the side are then for switching disks on the fly, when a game later wants, for example, DISK-3.

I will test things out in the next days, just tried a few games until now, on the Picture i played CANNON FODDER !

In next days i make a serial-connection for "LOTUS 2"-playing, between this Amiga and my Minimig This means then - synchron disk-track-reading from the Minimig and the HxC in the game. I am curious, how this works.

I tested around with the HxC yesterday and it even can load ipf-files. they just must be transformed to ipf.hfe with a special software on the PC, which can be found on the HxC-side.

About 30 things (games and demos) i tried and until now, i found only one, which hangs. it`s the Jesus-Demo, maybe the HxC don`t like the all-time-floppy-switching (df0 - df1), which this demo make. but i told this to Jeff (one of the two producers from this floppy) and maybe this is fixed in the next firmware.

EPSKOG, yes it`s connected, where the normal floppy is connected in general. but to be true, i don`t looked inside in this Amiga-500 until now, so i can not say any details about this. the good thing is, that i can connect a normal external Amiga-Floppy too. should be good for copying between real disks and adf.hfe`s files, which then can be transformed back also to normal adf`s

BOING, don`t forget that the adf`s (880 kb) must be transformed into adf.hfe files (2001 kb), before they work on the HxC. But transformation goes fast on the PC, you just need a bigger SD-Card, because they are more then double.

One thing which i miss a little bit on the HxC, because i am used to it from the Minimig, is, that it`s not possible to go to the File-Browser (Emulator-Manager) all the time (while a game runs), because it`s a normal software and only on Reboot it`s here. But they solved it good, by having 16 slots, where disks can be placed at the beginning in the File-Browser. Each Slot has DF0 and DF1 and when a game, for example SUPERFROG, has 4 Disks, then disk1 and disk2 must be inserted in Slot-0 and disk3 and disk4 in Slot-1. This all must be done, before the game was started. When the game then asks, for example, for disk3, i switch the slot, with one klick on one of the two black buttons on the side, and then the disk3 (DF0) and disk4 (DF1) is inserted.

BOING, don`t forget that the adf`s (880 kb) must be transformed into adf.hfe files (2001 kb), before they work on the HxC. But transformation goes fast on the PC, you just need a bigger SD-Card, because they are more then double.

Yes I know about the image converter and already have compiled it under Linux

Still the convertion is faster than transfer one adf image to real Amiga and write it to a floppy disk etc.A bit more space is OK since I only have a selected amout of game/demo at each card, so it will do its job.

______________________________________________JMP $00000BED ; will guru-meditation until next morning

Copying "_ipf.hfe"-files shows me Verify-errors until now. Exactly the same thing, than on WIN-UAE, when i try it there. I think this is only possible when using a "X-Copy-Dongle" or something similar. Otherwise it seems, copying ipf`s to real disk is not possible. Somewhere i have such a hardware-piece, i must look and then try again.

"BATMAN THE MOVIE" works and on the HxC i can see, that this game jumps to DF1 and hangs there in the track 0 (the HxC always shows the drive, which reads in the digital-LED). So i thought, it will also not work here, but the light of the SD-Card-Use in the HxC inside goes on blinking, so i knew, that DF0 goes on reading and then the game could be loaded. Maybe this helps something in correcting this issue on the Minimig. In Win-UAE this game only runs when all drives except DF0 are Turned-off, otherwise it hangs. ADDITION: Just in that moment i read, that this game seems to be fixed on the Minimig in the next firmware-release.

The ipf-file from "THE DEEP" works without a problem on the HxC, but like i said, i can not copy it on a real disk or on a adf-file, without this X-Copy-Hardware. Also the adf-version of this game works here.

In "CANNON FODDER" i tried to format a save-disk on the HxC, but it don`t work. Same problem like on the Minimig, it stops with an error. Then i tried an adf.hfe of an Expanded-adf-file-savedisk, which was made on Win-UAE, but the HxC don`t recognized the disk. So this also seems not to work here, BUT i think, if i could find an ipf-file from a save-disk somewhere, that this could work. Until now in the Internet i only found expanded-adf`s. Does somebody know, how to make an ipf-file of a real disk? What program is needed for that?

Compatibility in the whole seems to be very good, i tested about 60 things until now and only the "JESUS-DEMO" make bigger problems. It need very very long to start (about 10 Minutes) and then it has problems while it runs with the loader.

In some games (for example PINBALL FANTASIES) the HxC wants the Pinball-Table-Disks in DF0 and dont recognize them, when they are inserted in DF1. Strange, because with normal floppys, this game also accepts DF1.

Copying between real disks and "_adf.hfe"-files with "X-Copy" or other Amiga-copy-programs work good (also with verify), when the external Amiga Floppy is DF2. BOING do you know, if the external Floppys have jumpers inside, that allows, to set an external floppy to DF2 all the time, even when its the only external floppy which was connected to the Amiga?I thought all the time this floppys choose the ID`s automatically in that order, in which they are connected to an Amiga.Because the problem is this: when only one external floppy is connected to my Amiga who has the HxC inside, then it was found as DF1. But the HxC has 2 Floppys (DF0 and DF1). the external floppy seems not to check that up and, instead of being DF2, it is also DF1, which produces a problem on the DF1 floppy at all. Then nothing is readable, not the real disk in the external floppy and also not the adf.hfe-file in the DF1 from the HxC. Copying also dont work then. But i found out, when i simply connect another external floppy than this is DF2 and then i can copy without a problem from DF0 (HxC) to the real disk in DF2 and backwards. So i must use 2 floppys to get this work. maybe i can change this, because JEFF (one of the 2 people behind the HxC) wrote me, i should change the jumpers in the external floppy, that it is always DF2, also when just one external floppy is connected. BOING, do you know, if this is possible, i even dont knew that external Amiga-Floppys have jumpers to set the ID manually.

In the whole i can say about the HxC, that i am really satisfied with this thing. One great piece of hardware more to the Minimig, the 1541-Ultimate, the Chameleon-64, the SD2IEC, the MGH (for the Super-Nintendo), the Firecore-Passport (for the Mega-Drive) and and and ...

There exist a new hfe-format now, that JEFF (one of the HxC-producers) introduced and with this format the JESUS-DEMO works now and even the CANNON FODDER SAVEDISK work. So its possible now, to save in this game on the HxC.

I also wanted a savedisk, which works on my MINIMIG, so I played around with the new HxC-fileconverter and when you change the CANNON FODDER SAVEDISK from the new hfe-format back to a "IMG file (RAW Sector file format)" and rename this to adf, then you have a SAVEDISK which has 880kb instead of the 1.979kb-extended-adf-size and still works on Win-UAE.

So i had big hopes, that this outcoming savedisk could also work on the MINIMIG, but sadly not.

If somebody wants to try this 880kb-savedisk in Win-UAE and maybe has ideas what could be done to make this readable on the Minimig - here is the file. One save-state is on it for testing.

Its understandable that game like "the deep" works even with the HxC emulator because the real Amiga hardware and its internal register still is the same. At Minimig this game fail due to one unvalued register named DSKBYTR. Its not that easy to implement its function and its not even used very often.

I cant reproduce the HxC situation, because I dont (yet) have one to play with.Also Im not sure if an external Amiga floppy drive can be jumpered to a desired drive number. As far as I know, the AmigaOS detect next drive in chain by a pull of _SELx signal and wait for the _RDY pulses. External drive electronic manage and store its "given" drive number and actually floppy drive always is set at DS0.But I never was a specialist in such things, maybe others can explain this more clear.

______________________________________________JMP $00000BED ; will guru-meditation until next morning

I also never heard that external Amiga-drives could be manually set to a drive-number (like on the C64 for example). So, when this dont work, i will do it like i wrote. When i want to copy from adf_hfe to real disks and backwards with the HxC, i simply connect 2 external drives and use DF2 then. So, now i have 3 possibilites for copying to real disks and backwards - Amiga-Explorer over PC - the HxC with an external floppy - or the PCMCIA-Adapter on the A600.

Try my produced 880kb-Cannonfodder-savedisk, BOING.

In WinUAE this adf works, now a way must be found, that MINIMIG accepts it.

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